Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs review

Forget old Arthur and his Knights - Dark Age of Camelot seems to have the monopoly on almost any mythology you could name.

Give it another six months and we'll probably be sitting here with character classes like Rusalka (sit in the middle of a lake until a hero comes along, then try to seduce and drown them), Domovoi (take care of a house while its owner is away - possibly through a Sims style interface) and Bigfoot (attempt not to be noticed, using the amazing power of not actually existing. Sorry, American readers...)

For now, however, DAoC is content to play with more standard fare - adding the likes of vampires and valkyries to its already huge mix of character classes, each with their own new specialities for both PvP and PvE.

Unfortunately, DAoC's new features aren't enough to separate it from the mass of MMORPGs currently vying for our cash.

The improved character graphics are certainly welcome, but overall the visuals, much like the core game itself, are now lagging far behind the likes of World of Warcraft and Guild Wars.

That's not a surprise - DAoC is getting on for five years old now - but the genre has moved on, and there's little to recommend this over more recent games if you're just starting out.

On the plus side, there are plenty of excellent additions if you've run out of adventures in Albion, Hibernia and Midgard.

Each Realm now has its own set of instanced dungeons - areas where you and your party get a personal copy of the area to fight your way through.

True, instances per se aren't particularly innovative, but they do bolster what is traditionally DAoC's biggest weakness - the (relative) lack of things to do when playing PvE rather than the Realm vs Realm high-level game.

Just on their own, without the new graphics and character classes, these instances make Catacombs well worth adding to your Camelot collection - provided that you already have an account and aren't planning to jump ship in the near future.

Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs is out for PC now